Greetings Arcane Mages and those who wish to be. This is my first guide and even though I’ve trained many Mages over the last few years of being a Class Leader/Officer in my guild, I still had reservations over writing a community guide. The guide is based on patch 5.0.4, my experiences with Arcane, research done for MoP and last but certainly not least, the endless community discussions we’ve had here for the last several months. I hope you learn something new or find the information you were looking for.

1.0.1Summary of the keypoints

This part is intended for players who already know everything about Arcane and are just looking for a quick general suggestion for building their character:

With your four set, the offpieces you should be looking to pick up in order of priority are Ebon Ritual Hood, Hood of Swirling Senses, Fusespark Gloves, Dou Dou Chong Shoulders, Leggings of Furious Flame, Akolik's Acid-Soaked Robes.

As a general rule just use the 4 set.

When to break your 4 set: If you have any three heroic pieces with 2 normal or 1 normal 1 heroic tier pieces, use the 2 set with the heroic pieces. If you have two heroic tier pieces and two normal tier pieces use the 4 set **unless one or more of your offpieces is heroic warforged** If you have three heroic tier pieces, use the 4 set.

When getting into full heroic gear setups do not break your 4 set until you have all three of the specific pieces needed for best in slot with at least 2/3 of them warforged. That means Ebon Ritual Hood, Fusespark Gloves and Dou Dou Chong shoulders.

1.1Notes for pre-MoP Arcane players

New Arcane Mages, skip this short part, it will only confuse you.

The Arcane playstyle has significantly changed from our classic Burn + Evocation + Conserve gameplay. Burning mana using Arcane Blast effectively doesn’t exist anymore except in a limited version which will be explained later. The new Arcane is a far less bursty specialization, but more complex in mana management and ability usage.

1.25.1 Note

In Patch 5.1, Arcane go some significant number changes in terms of Arcane Charge mana cost reductions and damage modifier increases per stack. We liked it a lot as it bumped Arcane to a perfectly competitive level and it also introduced several new gameplay innovations, some as unwanted side-effects. Also note, some of the tooltips in the game might still be wrong (Arcane Charge, Blast, etc.).

1.35.2 Note

In Patch 5.2 Arcane was again significantly changed. The amount of changes wasn't really significant, but the gameplay changes which resulted were. There is no more 6-Charge camping, primarily because now you can get only to 4 Charges. Additionally, the mana cost per Charge for Blast is now a lot higher so there is no more camping at max Charges and Scorch is now Fire exclusive so it can't be used anyway.

2.Core Abilities

Arcane Charge – formerly known as stacks of Arcane Blast
- built by Blast, Missiles and Explosion, spent by Barrage and Evocation
- stacks up to 4
- Arcane Explosion refreshes the duration of existing Charges with a 30% chance to generate a Charge, but is not affected by it in any other way

Arcane Power – increases the damage of all damaging spells by 20% and their mana cost by 10%

Mastery: Mana Adept – increases damage done based on the percentage of available mana
- this is the base and core of doing good damage as an Arcane Mage

Mage Bomb – discussed later in the section on level 75 talents, but belongs in the basic priority list

Mage Armor – increases Mastery by 3000, thus making it the only viable Armor option for Arcane

3.Basic Gameplay without level 90 talents

0. Pre-combat buffs – Arcane Brilliance and Mage Armor (Mastery)
1. Mage Bomb – refresh Nether Tempest or Living Bomb when there is no more than one tick remaining
2. Arcane Power – cast when off cooldown
3. Arcane Blast – generate charges
- if you are under 3 charges and have 2 Missiles procs, cast Missiles *once* and then continue to build up to 4 Charges with Blast, after which you use any remaining Missiles
4. Arcane Barrage – use when you reach 4 Charges and have no more Missiles procs
- use at 3 Charges if there are no Missiles procs and you are under 80% mana

Beginner tip – Presence of Mind is your safest bet, Ice Floes can be wasted if not used properly, and we are not really used to move and cast

Pro tip – mastering Ice Floes can be quite beneficial depending on the encounter, but will require practice even for the experienced Arcane Mages. I personally found Blazing Speed to be optimal for me this raid tier and I use only that.

Level 30 – Defense Tier

Temporal Shield– usable while disabled and doesn’t trigger a global cooldown. Heals after 4 seconds instead of preventively absorbing damage and also reduces incoming damage by 15% for the short duration.

Flameglow - a passive defensive spells which reduces a small amount of damage taken from each hit

Beginner tip – Ice Barrier is a sure thing when your raid leader calls for defensive cooldowns or when you find yourself in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Pro tip – Temporal Shield is the best for maximizing your damage because it's off the global cooldown, but be careful because it’s not an absorb in the classic sense and there are loads of fights which make you frequently take high hits. If you know how and when to use Teamporal Sield, go ahead.

Level 45 – Crowd Control Tier

Ring of Frost – only useful for a larger pack of adds and also has a cast time

Ice Ward – a great spell to put on an off-tank kiting adds or any dedicated kiter

Tip – if the raid encounter demands it, you take it and use it, doesn’t get much simpler than that.

Level 60 – Survival Tier

Greater Invisibility – a powerful utility spell, can be used as a defensive cooldown or to cheat death mechanics

Cauterize – its greatest advantage is that it works on its own, its only weakness the easily healable damage which can be compensated by a shield spell or Evocation heal and of course, your group’s healers

Cold Snap – not that useful for raiding, but enables extra Ice Blocks and has a heal. The other two abilities are just far more versatile in PvE

Beginner Tip – Cauterize is a no worries talent because it doesn’t require you to actively plan and use it

Pro Tip – not taking unnecessary damage is (or should be) one of the goals of every DPS in the raid and Greater Invisibility allows just that. If timed properly with boss mechanics, you lose damage only for 1 global cooldown. Additionally, with the 5.3 cooldown reduction to Greater Invisibility, it's become one of my favorite Mage spells.

Living Bomb – works best against 1-3 spread targets because of the target limitation, currently the strongest single target bomb

Frost Bomb– works best against 5+ targets, but also works best in Frost’s gameplay as it has a 100% chance to proc Brain Freeze

Tip – Living Bomb single target, Nether Tempest on more targets

Level 90 – Superpowers Tier

Invocation – allows something resembling a burn phase
- changes the gameplay to:
1. Evocation
2. Standard rotation with being extra careful not to cast any more Blasts when reaching 4 Charges
3. When the buff is about to expire, burn mana to 30-35% with Blast, then back to step 1

Incanter's Ward – changes the gameplay to allow mini burn phases on fights with regular predictable damage – burn mana to 75-80% in preparation, pop shield to absorb damage and regain mana to full in time to use Missiles and Barrage
- best damage is gained by having 5-6 Charges and Missiles ready when you gain the damage buff
- works best on fights with lots of movement and predictable damage

Tip - Rune of Power is currently the only competitive option for Arcane with Incanter's Ward being possible on some fights, but not really needed.

5.Cooldown usage and special abilities

Fire Blast - only if you're walking around like an idiot (like on Durumu's Maze)

Blink – learn to maximize your damage with well timed and placed Blinks, running is not an option if this spell is ready and now when we have the double blink option and blazing speed, our moving around is really easy

Counterspell – if your raid leader requires you to interrupt something important, you should do it. However, melee dps and tanks are still a better option for this so argue if needed

Ice Block – your ultimate survival cooldown, best used in emergencies or to cheat death mechanics

Remove Curse – help your healers, dispel curses if needed, as rare as it may be

Evocation – used as a powerful heal and a core ability of the Invocation gameplay. Essentially not required anymore otherwise unless you forget yourself and cast too many Blasts. It's not available when you use Rune of Power anyway.

Mirror Image – use on cooldown, it’s a decent DPS ability

Invisibility – a nice spell to remove threat or at the end of a wipe to stay alive and use Mass Resurrection, but much better in its Greater talented form.

Spellsteal – there have been mechanics which required a Purge, Dispel or Spellsteal. Sometimes it’s better for us to have the effect

Mana Gem – allows you to cast an extra Blast or two and then instantly gets you to full mana to maximize the Mastery bonus on Missiles and Barrage

Time Warp – While I’ve always preferred Restoration Shamans to use it, if it’s needed, you cast it

Alter Time – Our amazing new level 87 spell allows us some fun things every 3 minutes. When you activate the spell, it memorizes your HP, mana, buffs, debuffs, procs and position (but not cooldown or internal cooldown availability). It practically extends the duration of everything on you by 6 seconds.
- ultimate usage – check 3.2
- note – this spell can be used defensively in PvE, but it really shouldn’t

Tip – maximizing your damage will require you to master the usage of Alter Time, Mana Gem, Blink and Level 90 talents.

6.Glyphs

I will review only the relevant or potentially relevant glyphs for Arcane:

Glyph of Evocation – mandatory for all Mages I’ve been training since it appeared – helps your healers by being one of the most powerful heals in the game, but is also very useful with the level 90 talents

Glyph of Arcane Power – very useful on fights which have periods of limited freecasting without movement and useful when you can predict the duration of a fight

Glyph of Slow – doesn’t have a chance to proc Missiles anymore and the Torment the Weak talent has been removed so this is basically useless for PvE

Glyph of Counterspell – can be useful on fights which require counterspelling so you never have to stop dps.

Glyph of Armors – would be good if you ever had to switch armors, but as Arcane you really don’t

Minor Glyphs:

Glyph of Loose Mana – in my personal game style, this isn’t a DPS increase (see Mana Gem in the previous section), but if you use it at 95% mana and then continue with Blast, the effect might be the same in terms of DPS. Additionally, Nathyiel has pointed out that the Loose Mana Gem buff is subject to Alter Time so it can be used for double the effect.

Glyph of Momentum – can be combined with Ice Floes to Blink while casting and strafing (I think, my testing was a bit inconclusive)

Mastery – our gameplay revolves around our Mastery (Mana Adept), which requires us to stay as close to 100% mana as possible. Mastery provides a flat damage increase

Haste – since patch 5.0.4, Arcane Blast’s cast time is no longer reduced by Charges and we got a new ability called Nether Attunement which makes Haste increase the mana regained from all sources (base regen, Evocation, Mana Gem, level 90 talents). You should have enough haste to reach specific DoT breakpoints while maintaining Mastery on every item.

Crit – our gameplay doesn’t depend on Crit (like Fire and Frost do) and since the all-mighty damage of Blast has been redistributed to other spells, Crit became even less powerful than before

Credit, along with my eternal gratitude, goes to Igloo for compiling a comprehensive list of all non-raid Intellect gear that used to be posted here.

8.0.1 Should I break my T16 4-set bonus?

Thanks to Voltaa for putting together this piece of advice:

With your four set, the offpieces you should be looking to pick up in order of priority are Ebon Ritual Hood, Hood of Swirling Senses, Fusespark Gloves, Dou Dou Chong Shoulders, Leggings of Furious Flame, Akolik's Acid-Soaked Robes.

As a general rule just use the 4 set.

When to break your 4 set: If you have any three heroic pieces with 2 normal or 1 normal 1 heroic tier pieces, use the 2 set with the heroic pieces. If you have two heroic tier pieces and two normal tier pieces use the 4 set **unless one or more of your offpieces is heroic warforged** If you have three heroic tier pieces, use the 4 set.

When getting into full heroic gear setups do not break your 4 set until you have all three of the specific pieces needed for best in slot with at least 2/3 of them warforged. That means Ebon Ritual Hood, Fusespark Gloves and Dou Dou Chong shoulders.

8.1 T16 Trinket ranking

Credit to Blueobelisk for making 5.1 trinket simulations which have been removed.

Any addon of your preference which will allow you to track Bomb debuffs or cooldowns (Needtoknow, Tellmewhen, ...)

Arcanometer – very simplistic in design, tracks mana, bombs and Charges and that’s basically everything it needs to track.

Tip: organize your user interface in a way that you are most comfortable with, not in a way someone suggests is best.

10.Guide for Arcane in Siege of Orgrimmar

COMPOSED BY CYCOBI

This is the N-Mode version of a per-boss guide for SoO, will add in the H Mode version once I've got a bit more used to the encounters!

Immerseus:
- Blazing Speed, Temporal Shield, Cauterize, Living Bomb
- Place two Runes next to each other and move progressively and as little as possible after each puddle spawns
- Don't try saving Charges for the adds, Charges will run out. Get them into the boss if/where possible
- Temporal Shield when the adds are getting close to the boss so you don't create strain for the healersShang:
- Ice Barrier is also a good option because when the little adds start doing damage you don't have anything to dps anyway so the GCD save on TS isn't needed
- Heroic: - you can use Glyph of Cone of Cold if the little adds that spawn are grouped and tanked near you, nets you a nice dps boost
- Greater Invisibility is a great choice for damage reduction when returning to your position after killing the adds while Immerseus is down, if there are no healers around for no reason, Cauterize can be dangerous
- Double Blink to get to adds and back is amazing

Fallen Protectors:
- Blazing Speed, Temporal Shield, Greater Invisibility, Nether Tempest
- Can Greater Invis the Rogue Garrotes and can Temporal Shield the Keg-Toss like ability to give freecast
- Maintain Nether Tempest on all possible targets which will live long enough for it to tick properly unless you're told not to

Norushen:
- Blazing Speed, Temporal Shield, Greater Invisibility, Living Bomb
- Can use Greater Invisibility to soak the Blind Hatred to minimize movement
- While in the Solo Realm, don't bother with Rune of Power, just be careful with the number of spells you're using to manage your mana. Blazing Speed and Double-Blink glyph are great for this boss for the extra movement capability
- Leave (up to 3 total) DoTs up on the adds if you haven't been purified to get maximum damage onto the boss through Foul Link and focus DPS one of these mobs before re-Dotting a new targetShang:
- you can cast a new rune on the opposite side of the giant laser and then just blink to it when the laser is coming your way

Sha of Pride:
- Blazing Speed, Temporal Shield, Cauterize, Living Bomb, Glyph of Cone of Cold
- When small adds are about to spawn, hold 4 stacks and burn a little mana to prevent them dropping, instantly CoC them, followed by Barrage onto them and then spam AE for maximum AoE burst potential
- Place your second Rune onto the prison segment you'll be running onto to allow for casting while you're standing there to free peopleShang:
- Double blink and blazing speed is enough to get you to any prison or to any shadow rift on heroic
- Greater Invisibility can be a life saver for one of the more dangerous and higher damage Swelling Prides on Heroic

Iron Juggernaut:
- Blazing Speed, Temporal Shield, Cauterize, Living Bomb
- Place your Rune and position yourself next to a wall or a fence so that during knockback you won't move and can continue freecasting
- Use Temporal Shield to soak the red circles apart from in P2 when there's a barrage of themShang:
- Heroic - you can't soak the red circles because they do too much damage, be prepared to blink or move
- 10-man HC - Greater Invisibility if you have to soak the mines - Shockwave defense: Ice Barrier / Healthstone / Ice Barrier, then Ice Barrier / Ice Block / Ice Barrier - you can replace Ice Barrier with Temporal Shield if your healers are good enough to keep you at 100% health between shockwaves
- 25-man HC - Temporal Shield / Greater Invis / Temporal Shield for shockwaves, if you really love cauterize and don't want to use G.I. then do it, we don't dps during the siege phase so the global cooldown isn't important for me

Dark Shaman:
- Blazing Speed, Temporal Shield, Cauterize, Living Bomb/Nether Tempest based on strategy (Living Bomb for split, NT for stacked)
- Try chaining Runes together to allow for more movement, but always keep an eye on the Toxic Storm/Toxic Tornados as they will move in set patternsShang:
- don't destroy your keyboard from all the Rune of Power recasting, it's dreadfully annoying, but at least it's the only fight like that in SoO

General Nazgrim:
- Blazing Speed, Temporal Shield, Greater Invisibility, Living Bomb, Glyph of Arcane Power
- Save second set of Cooldowns (AT, AP etc) for second Berserker phase, should be popping BL here
- Glyph of Counterspell if you want to help on interrupts where needed
- I believe you can Invis to drop the aggro from the Assassin - not confirmed thoughShang:
- if you get targeted by an assassin, turn towards it and use Ice Block - he'll spend 8 seconds attacking your ice block while the rest of the raid kills it

Spoils of Pandaria:
- Blazing Speed, Temporal Shield, Cauterize, Nether Tempest
- Nether Tempest everything to get full benefit but don't lose track of priority targets and maintain DPS on them
- Try and maximize use of Nether Tempest to get as many 4-stack Arcane Missiles out as possible, and also do what you can to maximise Barrage cleave

Thok:
- Blazing Speed, Temporal Shield, Cauterize, Living Bomb
- Run as much haste as you can if your guild is having difficulties killing this; if Arcane Blast/Missiles are sub-1.5s casts you can get them off in between each Deafening Screech, even at maximum Acceleration

Klaxxi Paragons:
- Blazing Speed, Temporal Shield, Cauterize, Living Bomb
- ST focus main target, cleave off others with Barrage because it's passive but it's also useless
- No other special tips or tricks here

Garrosh:
- Blazing Speed, Temporal Shield, Cauterize, Living Bomb, Glyph of Cone of Cold
- Cauterize stops random deaths from shit like MC, etc
- Rune placement is important here as it's crucial to place it in such a way that you can effectively minimise all unnecessary movement, if you're using "stack at X, move to Y, kill weapon at X vice versa etc" tactic, Blink as soon as he's casted Desecrate and Blazing Speed as well to get into position before anyone else so you don't lose timeShang:
- the stacking tactic works great on 25-man normal - the raid can stay on Garrosh and live through the desecrated weapons (while destroying them of course) all the way to the second entry into the shadow realm when he gets Empowered Desecrated Weapon. After that you have to spread out as always for phase 2

11.Closing Remarks

Thank you for reading and/or using this guide, any feedback and dicussion is greatly appreciated. The main idea of this guide is to sum up what we’ve been talking about since the Beta started and to provide reference material for all of the people who want to play an Arcane Mage through Mists of Pandaria.

Rune of Power is designed that way on purpose to further ruin mobility, or it would just be too simple to maintain runes on the floor. This way you have to think about dropping the rune and plan to be able to stand in it at that location.

Why did you put this in your guide "Expertise – since 5.0.4 provides Spell Hit chance, useful for early expansion reforging"
The only reason bliz implemented this would be fore enhance shamans(and maby Monk don't know how they work) cloth doesn't have expertise on it and any weapon or trinket with it would have a worthless proc or main stat for mages.

ahh i see what your getting at i thought you where implying mages go find melee gear for expertise lol. you should maybe provide the fallowing example then: you have a piece of gear with hit and crit on it you cant reforge the crit to more hit but you can forge it to expertise

ahh i see what your getting at i thought you where implying mages go find melee gear for expertise lol. you should maybe provide the fallowing example then: you have a piece of gear with hit and crit on it you cant reforge the crit to more hit but you can forge it to expertise

I know what you mean, I'm sure they're lying so far I've seen it more like 10-15% (btw it's per cast and it needs to hit at least 1 target, so you can't spam it outside of combat to prepare for AoE). Honestly for leveling the best AoE for Arcane is single target to build charges, Presence of Mind + Ring of Frost and then Barrage to hit all targets. After that repeat the same with Frost Nova instead of RoF.

However, this doesn't work in dungeons really because the CC breaks faster than our global cooldown resets, so in dungeons I use Flamestrike + Arcane Explosion and then Barrage when appropriate. And just hope for the best.

I finally have to agree that I'm not happy with Invocation. However, my gear still sucks and I have (I kid you not) 3.3% haste. Even doing quests is tragically annoying considering all the knockbacks, knockups, silences, stuns, knockdowns, interrupts that the mobs around the continent have. I'm using Ward for the daily grinds and wrapping up zone quests... we'll see when I start doing Heroics how it will work out.

Invocation is theoretically usable by Arcane, but using it would change the stat weight so Haste comes before Mastery.

I personally think it synergises very poorly with Arcane; our spec is contingent upon effective mana management and the loss of passive regeneration with Invocation isn't made up for by the decreased cooldown on Evocation.

Invocation is theoretically usable by Arcane, but using it would change the stat weight so Haste comes before Mastery.

I personally think it synergises very poorly with Arcane; our spec is contingent upon effective mana management and the loss of passive regeneration with Invocation isn't made up for by the decreased cooldown on Evocation.

This was exactly what is going through my mind as well. I tried Invocation and reforging/geming to haste and it didn't work out well at all, at least in current gear (was 463 ilvl at time), I found mastery was still better, at least with the gear I had available.
Rune of Power provides much better dps exactly because we don't burn through mana so fast, ie we can stay near full all the time. Problem is, we're basically static and it's a big hinderance. I'm still getting used to it, even tested PoM+Rune for fast repositioning. Still not sure about the whole thing though.
Incanter's Ward... so much wrong with it. Passive is too low, and when you do pop it you NEED to make sure you get the shield broken or you're screwed, encouraging bad gameplay.

The talents are so counter-intuitive to me, really hoping they make some quality of life changes on them.
Rune of Power - instant cast, no cd would be ideal, though it could make it a too obvious choice for pve.
IW - losing the bonus if not recieving the damage is too painful. make it so you don't lose it if it's on CD but lower the bonus to 24% to compensate.

That change to Rune of Power will never happen as it would go completely against the design of the spell in the first place.

The change for Incanter's Ward would make sense, but it's a skill talent - you benefit from the passive and you use the active when you are sure you'll be able to take the damage. That doesn't require luck, it requires knowing the encounter mechanics.

That change to Rune of Power will never happen as it would go completely against the design of the spell in the first place.

The change for Incanter's Ward would make sense, but it's a skill talent - you benefit from the passive and you use the active when you are sure you'll be able to take the damage. That doesn't require luck, it requires knowing the encounter mechanics.

Why would making it instant cast go against the design of the spell? It's a movement restricter by virtue of the fact the buff is contingent on you being static. The removal of the cast time is simply a quality of life change to make placement on the go easier.